Embezzling the War Chest

LOS ANGELES--The reach of an alleged fraud scheme widened Tuesday as
more California Democrats said their war chests had been raided by a
prominent campaign treasurer, with thefts allegedly totaling hundreds of
thousands of dollars.

Burbank-based Kinde Durkee, a 58-year-old veteran campaign treasurer
who managed money for scores of Democratic campaigns and causes--from
Sen. Dianne Feinstein to a group called Democrats of the Desert, was
arrested last week and charged with fraud.

According to a federal criminal complaint, Ms. Durkee admitted to
using campaign funds to pay for an array of expenses including mortgage
payments, cosmetics and the nursing-home care of her mother. According
to the complaint, Ms. Durkee "misappropriated money from her clients'
bank accounts and filed false disclosure reports to hide the
misappropriations."

Cosmetics? That's a lot of lipstick.

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2 Comments

As person who lacks a Y chromosome and has a weakness for designer cosmetics, I can attest to the fact that they are expensive, but certainly not THAT expensive...funny that this was included along with mortgate payments and nursing home care (two line items far more likely to eat up large chunks of change than cosmetics).